Workshop Descriptions

Workshops

Conscious Consumerism: What is our role in as consumers to prevent human trafficking?

Emily Pasnak-Lapchick

We are all connected to modern-day slavery and human trafficking through the food that we eat, the clothes that we wear, and the technology that we use on a daily basis. The good news is that there are tangible ways we can all become conscious consumers and choose products that are not made by slave and child labor. You will walk away with an understanding of the power that you have to create positive social change, including an action plan to bring back to your school and community to help offset the demand for human trafficking.

Know the Signs

Janai Smith

​It's becoming more commonly known that human trafficking is something that happens in the United States and right here in NYC. But do you know what it looks like? Could you spot a victim of human trafficking? Would you know what to do if someone you know was being trafficked? Come to ECPAT's workshop to learn all of this and more, including what you can do to raise awareness about this human rights abuse.

Sex Trafficking Policy: What Works?

Erika Pichardo & Gabrielle Loccisano

How has government responded to sex trafficking? What are the policies in place in the U.S. and around the world that are created for the purposes of fighting sex trafficking? How successful have they been? In this workshop lead by The College of Mount Saint Vincent seniors, Gabrielle Loccisano and Erika Pichardo, you will compare sex trafficking policy.

​﻿Fighting for Fair Food: How Students and Young People are Following Farmworker Leadership to End Abuse and Transform the Food System

Alliance for Fair Food ​

As consumers, students, and young people, we have a strong and powerful voice when it comes to confronting injustice and transforming the systems we live in. When we consider the importance of those most directly affected in leading their own struggles, including farmworkers who daily experience sweatshop conditions in the fields, we recognize our role in amplifying their voices and organizing in our own campuses and communities to end abuse and build a food system based on justice and dignity for farmworkers. In this workshop, we will learn about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' fight to raise wages and eradicate abuses -- including modern-day slavery -- and how the Campaign for Fair Food, led by farmworkers and supported by consumers across the U.S., has won agreements with fourteen multibillion dollar food retailers and begun to transform the U.S. agricultural industry through the worker-designed Fair Food Program. Join us to learn how you can take action!

#TalkTraffic: Talking About Trafficking and Human Rights

Juhu Thukral

In this workshop, attendees will work with the NY Anti-Trafficking Network’s #TalkTraffic series, a sequence of eight short videos that provide essential insights into understanding the large-scale issue of human trafficking, including what it looks like, the kind of help survivors usually need, and what you can do directly to help.

Games Can Do Serious Good!

Robin Newman

Can games really help to tackle sex trafficking? We think so! In this workshop you’ll get to see how an educational card game was designed to foster social change and raise awareness on sex trafficking. Participants will learn the key elements that go into making a game, have the opportunity to play­test Say No More ­ a game designed for girls to reflect on healthy relationships versus unhealthy relationships, learn to practice saying no and better understand how to assert themselves. It’s also a tool for social workers. You’ll walk away with a new love for games, and creative lens to tackle big problems. Come see how a well­-designed game can do some serious good. All genders welcome! Come find out why games matter!

Labor Trafficking in New York City: what is it, and how can you stop it?

Su-Young Jung

In this workshop, Attendees will learn from an anti-trafficking activist and representative at the New York Asian Women's Center (NYAWC), Su Young Jung, about the issue of human trafficking from her experience. Through this conversation, you will understand available services at NYAWC and the face of human trafficking focusing on labor trafficking, which is often underrepresented in the conversation of human trafficking. The attendees will collectively think about ways to support survivors.

Fear, Fraud, and Frank Complexities: the influence of gender on human trafficking

Lisa Ruchti

In order to truly abolish trafficking and best serve its victims, we need to know the truth about why it happens. Women are much more trafficked than men, but have you ever wondered why and what this means for our anti-trafficking campaigns, laws, and policies? Is there something about women personally that makes it easier for traffickers to target them or is it something about society that increases their risk? How do you imagine a woman is actually trafficked: through abduction in a way you might see on an episode of Law and Order SVU or is the route to being trafficked a bit more complex? How do we solve trafficking? Is it more important to simply protect women from men or are there other social factors we must consider? To answer these questions, sociologist of gender Lisa Ruchti will help you understand the relationship between oppression, gender inequality, and the trafficking of women so you can use this knowledge to teach others and make change.

Investigation Station

​Lauren Burke

In this interactive workshop you'll work with Atlas: DIY Executive Director and Forbes 30 under 30 lawyer Lauren Burke on examining real-life case scenarios of human trafficking as it pertains to immigrants in the U.S. today. We'll put YOU in the driver's seat ​as you work as a team to fight for your client's rights to an immigration judge. Your work will determine whether or not survivors are allowed to stay in the United States.

Demand Disruption: Cities Empowered Against Sexual Exploitation

Dhakir Warren

In this workshop, you will learn about the work of Demand Abolition, an organization committed to eradicating the illegal commercial sex industry in the US—and, by extension, the world—by combating the demand for purchased sex. Demand Abolition is catalyzing social change to reflect the dignity of all people, insisting that an inherent human right is that no person can be bought or sold. Human trafficking and prostitution continues to flourish, degrading those being prostituted (usually vulnerable populations of women and children), as well as the men who are buying them. Recognizing that it takes sustained efforts and significant collaboration to establish lasting change, Demand Abolition is spearheading a multi-year, multi-stakeholder national strategy. Working closely with an active network of criminal justice professionals, survivors, practitioners, researchers, policymakers, corporate leaders, philanthropists, and media representatives, Demand Abolition serves as the nexus of information on policies and practices.

The Power of Stories

Kim Purcell

Kim Purcell is the author of the novel Trafficked, which follows the story of a young girl, Hannah, through her of being trafficked from Moldova to Los Angeles to be a nanny. This novel was nominated for the Teen Choice Book of the Year Award in 2013. Kim has lead numerous youth writing workshops at schools and universities around the country and she is very excited to run "The Power of Stories" a social justice writing workshop focused on exploring the ability of fiction writing to make difficult social issues more accessible.